Another light night in the NHL and another win by the Leaf’s, meaning 24 straight hours of “can the Leaf’s make the playoffs?” Just ask me dummies (ahem…Dreger….ahem). “The Toronto Maple Leafs are back and better than ever! In order to be reborn, you must die completely!” Hey, how did you get into this conversation Vic the Brick? Had to find a team to latch onto since the Lakers season is canceled? Oh wait I get it – the Leafs are unbearable to anyone outside of Toronto just like the Lakers are unbearable to anyone outside of LA (only the Lakers actually Win)… But enough! Onto the man with whom this post is titled. I mention Ales Hemsky because he’s surpassed the 8 game threshold for games played since returning from injury. It’s an arbitrary number I just came up with, but it sounds legit. Actually the truth is no one knows when his next injury will be, but until then he can give you RW2 stats. And with only 27% ownership in Yahoo he’s well worth a flier…

Tyler Bozak – C (Tor): It’s alot easier for me to write about the peripheral players on the Leafs than the key cogs. And that means guys like Bozak who can be picked up for nothing and give you numbers on a light schedule day like today. Obviously 2G/1A/5SOG won’t happen all the time. But if you time it right and get him when he’s got 4 games in 6 days or something he could steal a win in a H2H weekly league.

Martin St. Louis – RW (TB): In order to match last season, Mar-tan would have to score 83 Points in 62 games. To make matters even worse, he needs 39 of those Points to be on the Power Play to match last year….. PANIC BUTTON!

Andrei Loktionov – C (LA): Aaahhhhh. A new name. It’s always good to fling more of them at the wall. Anyway Loktionov is a talented young Russian and like all talented young Russians, he’s still a few years away from getting fat and worthless. Plus he’s seeing time with Richards who is on fire right now.

Alex Steen – C/LW (StL): Nothing here other than I spot started this guy yesterday and voila! A Goal! I’m gonna hang onto him and see where this goes, maybe romance is in our future…

Shawn Horcoff – C (Edm): The coffing whore followed up a dud against Dallas with 2 Goals against Nashville. 2 Games ago he had a Goal and 2 Assists. 3 Games ago he did nothing. 4 Games ago he scored a Goal. When you figure it out let me know…

Pekka Rinne – G (Nsh): I still love Rinne, but Pekka needs to Tekka some goaltending lessons right now. He got yanked last night against the aforementioned Edmonton Oilers and on Saturday he gave up 4 Goals to Colombus. Unless some injury surfaces this should be nothing more than a hiccup(p)…

Kris Russell – D (Stl): Kurt’s brother has been solid since coming over from Colombus for Niki Nikitin. It was a classic trash for trash trade but sometimes players just work in a different system. Deep, deeeeeep league players should take note.

Dwayne Roloson – G (TB): Just when you think the Goaltending shituation can’t get any worse in Tampa, you get a game like this. 6 Goals allowed on 21 shots for ROLO (he was mercifully pulled in the 3rd period).. This is something to keep an eye on. Tampa needs a Goalie and an upgrade would not be hard to acquire. Think like Evgeni Nabakov or Scott Clemmensen, if either end up in TB they are a must add.

Alright peeps programming note: I got family Thanksgiving duties to tend to but I’m going to have a Live Blog on Friday morning for the Detroit/Boston game on NBC. Starts at 1:00PM EST, or 10:00AM if you reside in Los Angeles.. or Portland.. or San Diego.. or San Francisco.. or Vancouver.. or Seattle.. or Victoria.. okay you get the point. See you on Friday morning and keep the questions coming, I’ll still be answering.

Leddy & Suter negate one another, Gionta has zero fantasy relevance at this point, so Benn & Kane for Crosby. On the surface, seems like a slam dunk, but I’d be personally worried about Crosby getting hurt again. But your team has position flexibility that you’ll be able to survive. I would probably do it.

@DC: New to fantasy hockey and the Razzpuck section of this site. A friend and I are co-managing a team in a 12 man public league to get the hang of this (possibly permanent) fantasy basketball replacement. Had an autodraft last night. The results:

A couple questions for you or any of the other nice commenters on here:

1. Are there any glaring deficiencies on this team?
2. Pronger and Pietrangelo were dropped right after the draft. Pronger is a must-add to replace Fowler in my starting lineup, correct?
3. Is Andrei Markov worth an add to my IR for the time being? Enstrom is on waivers, I could do the same with him instead if he clears.